


The Creature He Is

by OmissionSoul



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M, Some Action, Supernatural Elements, minor horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-07-12 05:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15988535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmissionSoul/pseuds/OmissionSoul
Summary: Craig Tucker had always found the strange boy who joined his school a month or so ago, named Kenny, interesting. He never seemed to speak, was always alone, and is always covered from head to toe in heavy clothes. Everything but his eyes. And one day, Craig finds himself looking at them and seeing something a bit... off.





	1. Chapter 1

Kenny was interesting to say the least. He had been transferred to South Park High School, just out of the blue one day, like magic. One day he wasn't there, and the next he suddenly was. It wasn't even at the start of the day when he had joined either, it was midday at lunchtime. So when everyone walked in to class following lunch, he was just sitting there already. There was no introduction or anything about him, he was just there.

There were people who stared at him, obviously, aside from not knowing who he was and just appearing out of nowhere, he was also always covered from head to toe in heavy clothing. Wearing a mostly orange with black patterns parka, black pants, black gloves, black jeans, that matched the bizarre black mask, like one you would see people in hospitals wearing, on his face. The only real visible things on him were his eyes and bits of his hair that poked out from under his parka's black furred trimmed hood.

Then there were the days where he was there, verses the days where he was not, sometimes being gone for days at a time. Which is when most learned what his actual name was, after someone asked where he was to the teacher, and they told everyone that he was staying home because of some medical reasons or something. Which people started to relate to why he wore a mask. He also seemed to keep mainly to himself and rarely talked to anyone, if at all, which only made him stand out all the more. Most of the guys in class were either put off, or weirded out by him. While a surprising number of girls found him to be, 'dark' and 'mysterious', because of how secretive he seemed to be, which seemed to get them really going on trying to find out more about him and guessing what he really looked like under his heavy clothing.

These were all things that a boy by the name of, Craig Tucker, had noticed about him over the past month or so since the strange hooded boy started going to his school, and living in his small town. He wasn't sure if this hyper focus on him was because he had spent so much time listening to one of his friends babble on about conspiracies over the years or not, but whatever the case was, he now found himself watching the hooded boy yet again in class, as he lay leaning on one of his hands and his head looking in his direction. Craig's seat was directly across from him, on the other side of the classroom about four rows over, so it was pretty obvious that his head was facing in his direction. He watches him as a strand of blond hair falls out from under his hood, his eyes narrowing as he focuses on it, watching it bounce a bit before it's gone from his view and replaced by a pair of eyes now looking at him instead.

Craig quickly looks away when he realizes that Kenny was now looking right at him, as if he somehow sensed him watching him. Which certainly wouldn't have been the first time that thought crossed his mind. Not really knowing where else to look, he instead focuses his gaze out of the window his seat was next to, and watches the rain outside hit the asphalt of the school yard, keeping it there till class ends.

The rest of the day passes by pretty uneventful like usual for Craig, despite the second class he shared with the strange boy. Although during his last class, gym, he sees something orange pass by outside on the sidewalk in the rain, as he heads back from the washroom. He watches the figure walk down the street, with a backpack on and no umbrella, seeming not to even care at all about having one.

When the school day ends, Craig heads home with a group of his friends and they hangout for a bit like usual, before all parting ways and heading home. Craig then spends the rest of the night playing games, or watching videos. And the thoughts of the hooded boy from earlier, fade from his mind.

When the next day arrives, it's more of the same as usual for Craig, the rain still continuing into it. As lunch arrives, he sits with his group of friends in the cafeteria. The conversation is pretty linear, like it always was, so he only finds himself paying half attention as he thinks of what he should do later on that day when he gets home. He gets so drawn in to those thoughts, that he almost misses when the topic of the strange boy from his class is brought up. His hearing tunes in more for it, but it only lasts a short while, as it's about how he always seemed to be absent from the lunchroom again, before the conversation moves on to something else. Thus lunchtime comes and goes. When Craig sees Kenny in the second class he shares with him, he decides to focus more on his work this time around until the bell rings again.

When his gym class arrives, he heads over to it with two of his friends he shares it with. As the class enters into the gym, the teacher informs everyone that since the rain outside has stopped now, to all get changed and ready to head out for some outdoor curricular activities. After a class unison groan, everyone heads off to change.

"This is so stupid! Why do we have to go outside and have gym, when everything is still soaking wet?! I mean it looks like it could still rain at any moment!" one of Craig's friends, Clyde, complains.

"Who knows man," another friend, Token, says back. "Just hurry and get changed, you don't want to have to run laps for taking too long again."

"What's it even matter, we'll have to run them anyways," Clyde says flatly.

"Are you saying you want to do even more of them?" Token asks, "Because you know more will just be added on."

"I know, I know," Clyde sighs irritated, and speeds up changing.

After running laps, like Clyde predicts, and a few other exercises, everyone gets split up in to groups of two and starts doing some practice throws with footballs. Craig pairs up with Clyde, while Token pairs up with another kid in their class. For the most part, class isn't to bad, aside from the football being wet from landing in a puddle, some bugs, and the occasional slips and falls on the pretty much nonexistent grip of the grass. All was going smoothly. That is until Clyde decides to tell Craig to go long, because he wanted to 'test' his strength in front of the onlooking ladies in class, which Craig rolls his eyes at.

Before Craig can reply though, Clyde tosses the ball as hard as he can and it goes flying way above his head. As Craig follow the ball's path with his eyes, he sees it on a straight collision course with someone who he wasn't expecting to see again that day. Kenny. He was walking along the sidewalk with his bag on again.

"Look out!" Clyde yells, warning him after realizing that his toss was about to hit him.

But it's already to late, and just as Kenny's turning to look over at them, the ball makes contact, hitting the side of his head and causing him to look away from it's impact. Craig internally cringes, as he's sure that anyone else around him who saw it, probably was too.

Craig makes his way slowly over to him as the ball lands on on the ground, and tries to look for the words to say. But a single,"Uh..." is the only response he comes up with. And he suddenly realizes that this is the first time that he's ever spoken to Kenny directly before, and it was just off to a wonderful start.

"Sorry about that," he finally gets out, when he realizes that he's just standing there and doing nothing, like an idiot. "My friend thought it would be fun to see how far he could toss the stupid ball and it uh, ended up going to far." he explains and leans down to pick the said 'stupid' ball up.

As he goes to stand back up he stops, spotting something on the ground. It takes a second for it to register, but when it does, Craig gives a somewhat confused look at it. It looked like a contact lens, but not a clear one, like that you would be prescribed to, it was a color one.

"Is that—" Craig is about to ask as he looks back up at Kenny, but is abruptly cut off when he sees Kenny's own eyes looking back at him.

Something is off about one of them to him though, there's a slit where a round circle should be, and the shade was off, way off. So much to the point where it looked like it was almost glowing. Craig's eyes widen and he stays frozen in place, unable to move, Kenny then quickly looks away and continues walking down the street. But Craig doesn't move from his spot, even after Kenny is quite a ways down it, he doesn't move until Clyde comes over to ask if he's okay, which Craig stands up straight again and shoves the ball at him, calling him a moron for tossing it so hard.

As Clyde walks off with the ball, making small apologizes, Craig's eyes wander back down to the ground again and he wonders if what he just saw was even real or not. That is until they land on the contact lens still lying there on the ground, and the image burns back in to his mind again.

The day comes to a close and Craig heads home with his usual group of friends, before they all part ways and go on their separate routes home. As Craig finishes up taking a shower, he makes his way through his bedroom and over to his jacket that he had tossed to the side on his dresser and unzips one of it's pockets, taking something out from it.

He goes over to his bed then and sits down on it, opening up his hand and revealing a small contact lens on his palm now. He wasn't sure why exactly he had chose to bring it home with him, or what possessed him to. But after what happened earlier that day, he felt like this was the only real proof he had to tell himself, he didn't just make it all up in his mind somehow. That what he saw, was indeed real. And it both intrigued and fascinated him for some strange reason. He holds up the contact between his index finger and thumb, examining it's deep blue shade and dark center.

Just who the hell was Kenny really?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Mikky Ekko - Who are you, really?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7WrwNXX8Fc)
> 
>  
> 
> (This song has been stuck in my head the whole time that I've been working on the first two chapters. I also find that it fits very well with this story too so lol.)

When the next day of school arrives, Craig goes about getting ready and heading off, his thoughts still preoccupied by the events from the day before. Still though, he expected it to be another long day like normal. However, that thought is quickly tossed out, right as he steps into his first morning class, instantly feeling eyes on him. He can't help but try and look to where the source of this feeling is coming from in the room. When his eyes finally find where the feeling is originating from, his heart freezes as they meet Kenny's. He was leaning onto his hand, his eyes now looking like how they were before the incident.

Craig glances away and makes his way over to his seat and sits down, the feeling never leaving him. And as if needing to be sure, he chances another glance over at him and sees that Kenny was still watching him, and not only that, but that his head was now more faced towards him. Craig wonders just why exactly Kenny was looking at him so intently like that, and briefly wonders if is connected to what happened yesterday, which may be likely. Either way, it made Craig a bit uncomfortable. He shifts around in his seat a bit and looks away out the window. He tries to ignore the feeling of being watched as the class goes on, but finds it hard to do.

Eventually the bell rings and Craig gathers his things and gets up. He sees Kenny get up from his seat at the same time, and Craig isn't sure why, but he suddenly finds himself speed walking to the door in order to get out of the class before Kenny reaches it. When he gets a decent way down the hall, he glances back and sees Kenny, but he was no longer watching him now. He instead was heading to his next class with his back to him. Craig let's out a small breath, unaware that he was even holding one in and makes his way to his own next class, thinking that maybe he was being paranoid a bit.

That is until lunch rolls around.

As Craig finds himself sitting with his usual friend group, and only paying some attention to what is going on around him, Clyde suddenly elbows him when he doesn't respond.

"Ow, what?" Craig asks irritatedly, rubbing at his side.

"Dude, didn't you hear me? I said look who's here today in the lunchroom," Clyde replies.

It takes a moment to register what Clyde's talking about, as his vision glances past his other friends sitting at the table and wearing somewhat concerned looking expressions. As he looks to where they are looking however, he understands why. Kenny was sitting at a table about two rows over from his own, but more than that, he was looking at him again.

"He's been looking over at our table for the past 5 minutes or so now," Token says.

"I don't understand why he's staring at us! D-did we do something to him?!" another occupant and friend, Tweek exclaims.

"I don't think so, a-at least I know I ha-haven't," the fifth friend of their group, Jimmy says.

"Maybe it's because of yesterday," Token says.

"What do you mean?" Tweek asks.

"Our gym class was outside yesterday, practicing throws and stuff, and Craig and Clyde's ball hit him right in the head," Token explains.

"Oh Jesus—what?!" Tweek exclaims.

"W-wow," Jimmy says.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who threw it. That was Clyde's doing. So if it's anyone's fault for him staring, it's his." Craig deadpans.

"Wow, thanks man, really," Clyde says back. "Also, I didn't know it was going to hit his head, it just happened alright?!"

"Well, whatever the case is, he's staring at us as if we stole his lunch money or something," Token says.

"H-he looks like he wants to murder us!  _Gah!_ " Tweek shrieks.

"N-now fellows, m-maybe we co-could go over there and a-ask him why he's st-staring at us so in-intimidatingly like that, hm?" Jimmy suggests.

"No way—I ain't gonna go over there and talk to him," Clyde protests. "You can, and I'll wish you the best, but I sure as hell ain't."

"Same!" Tweek adds.

"Co-come on you guys, aren't you being just a b-bit over dramat-tic?" Jimmy asks and looks at Craig, then Token for their replies to his suggestion.

"Sorry man, I'll have to pass as well. Something about him is a bit too... freaky for me," Token says shaking his head, earning a nod in agreement from the other two.

Suddenly Craig finds everyone now looking at him for his reply. He stiffens a bit under both his friend's and Kenny's gaze on him. For a brief moment, he thinks about going over with Jimmy and talking to him, but the sudden flash of what he saw from Kenny's eye slowly causes him to shake his head.

"I'll pass too," he tells them. "Besides, I already tried speaking with him yesterday, when apologizing about the ball hitting him and he said nothing so..."

Everyone stops for a moment and glances over at Kenny, wondering what to do. But their question seems answered, as Kenny turns, gets up, and walks away, leaving the cafeteria.

"Well that was... strange," Token says.

"Yeah," Clyde agrees.

Everyone eventually falls in to a normal conversation again, as Craig finds himself looking to where Kenny was seated and where he left. His thoughts still preoccupied with him. But not much else interesting that day happens, as when Craig sees Kenny in his second class with him, he goes back to his usual state of paying no mind to anything around him. And Craig can't tell if whether he's happy or not by that, which confuses him slightly. And again he finds himself wondering about the strange boy.

The end of the day comes and goes, and for the next couple days, Craig finds Kenny constantly on his mind. And when he wasn't, he would find himself glancing over to look at him and see if he was staring or not, which he would be sometimes. He just couldn't get a read on him at all. Everyone else around Craig, was always set in a particular pattern or routine, Kenny however, seemed to not have that at all. He would either be there or not, and even when he was there, it still seemed like he was not. It also didn't help that Craig would now feel his eyes on him sometimes either while just sitting there minding his own business. He thought about asking him what his problem was, but the that image from before would burn into his mind again, and he suddenly lost his nerve to. Still though, all of this was starting to drive him nuts, which is why when the weekend finally came around, he couldn't help but feel a bit more than relieved at being able to do something else that could fill up the space in his head for a couple days.

On Saturday he spends it at home playing games and watching some movies, while on the following day, Sunday, he goes and meets up with his friends at a local fast food place. As they head in and all sit down and talk about what special to order off the menu, Craig thinks about if whether or not he should tell his friends about Kenny, and the strange contacts he wore, because all of this was constantly sending his head in to a whirl. But something orange catches his eye before it's gone from his peripheral, and he quickly forgets about that thought as he looks down the street where he thought he saw it, but finds nothing there.

"Craig?" Clyde asks.

"Yeah?" Craig replies now looking at him.

"Your opinion?" Clyde adds.

"On?" Craig asks, forgetting what the topic even was about.

"Should we get tacos or burgers for today's hangout?" Clyde asks, as if it was a very urgent and important thing.

"Oh," is all Craig replies with.

"That's not an answer!" Clyde exclaims.

"Dude chill," Craig tells him, "and I don't know, burgers I guess?"

"Craig." Clyde says looking at him dead on, "Why do you hurt me like this?" he places a hand on his chest. "You know what the tacos mean to me."

"Oh come on man, we always get tacos," Token tells him.

"That's because they are awesome," Clyde says.

"I still think you could choke on one of the shells!" Tweek says.

"Bruh, that ain't gonna happen. It's a taco," Clyde tells him.

"You never know!" Tweek exclaims.

"You worry to much," Clyde says.

"I guess Jimmy isn't joining us today then?" Craig asks, ignoring his friends squabbles and looking at Token.

"No, he's busy with some family stuff or something," Token replies.

"I guess we should order soon then, before the place closes from us sitting here all day listening to if whether one can choke to death on taco shells," Craig says eyeing Clyde and Tweek, both of which offer a somewhat apologetic look.

"Ugh, alright fine!" Clyde quickly says and gets up from the table.

"You know that we're getting burgers right Clyde?" Token reiterates to him, getting up as well.

"I don't know nothing about no burgers!" Clyde replies as he starts heading off.

"Clyde," Token groans.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I know what we're getting," Clyde grins back at them and the others look at him unamused.

Some time passes by as evening starts to set in, and Craig and his friends decide to head over to Token's place to play some games after eating their food. As the time started to draw nearer to 10pm Craig eventually leaves with Clyde, after Tweek had taken leave a few hours earlier, wanting to get home before any 'night ghoulies' got him, to which the others all just looked at him.

Craig and Clyde eventually part when they reach a point where their homes resided on separate streets. It wasn't too bad though, because they were only a few blocks apart from one another so what could go wrong? The weather apparently, as it had stopped raining earlier that day, but still lingered and it decided that now was a good time to start up again. Craig decides to run the rest of the way then, as to not get more soaked than necessary. He runs until he comes across a playground that separated the street he was on, to the street his house was on. Under normal circumstances, he would usually just go around it at night, especially so late, but it was starting to pour now and he wanted to get home and change in to dry clothes. So he enters into the dimly lit park.

The vibe around it was much different than to how it was during the daytime. It felt like it wasn't even the same place. It didn't help with the rain either. Craig gets about halfway through the park before he thinks he sees something move from the corner of his eye. He tells himself it's probably just a dumb raccoon or a lost cat or something, and he almost believes it until he hears what sounds like a cough through the rain, causing him to go into a sprint and get the hell out of there as fast as he can. Just as he nears the park exit, a figure steps out from around a tree. Craig stops and comes face to face with a very scraggly looking man.

"Hey there son, you wouldn't happen to have any spare change on you, would ya?" the man coughs.

"No," Craig says and shakes his head.

"Not even a quarter?" the man asks taking a step forward.

"Sorry, I don't have any change," Craig says taking a step back.

There was something about this man that felt off to him. Something in that in his gut he knew connected to what he saw move earlier.

"Really? Nothing at all you have to help a poor fellow out?"

"No, I don't have anything," Craig says and quickly tries to go around the man in as big of a space as possible.

Just as he goes past him, another much bigger man steps out from the same tree.

"I knew your plan wouldn't work," the bigger man says annoyed, and the other shrugs. "Hey kid, turn out your pockets," he says now looking at Craig.

Craig backs up and bumps into the scraggly man behind him.

"Hey now, you better cooperate with him if you don't want things to get ugly," he says grabbing onto Craig's shoulders.

Craig then sees something small and metallic glint in the dark, and it take him a moment to realize it's a small knife being pulled from the bigger man's pocket. Craig's eyes widen at it and he momentarily curses to himself for not just taking the longer way around home. The bigger man walks right up to him then.

"Turn them out," the man orders.

"I don't have anything," Craig repeats.

"Fine then. I'll do it myself," the man says, he puts a hand on Craig's waist and the knife at his throat. "Don't move."

Craig's heartbeat quickens, not fully knowing what the man's intentions are. The other keeps him still as the bigger man moves his hand down to his jacket pocket and reaches into it feeling around. When he finds nothing in it, he moves to the other one. He takes something out once his fingers find a small object. A key. The man frowns somewhat and drops it, it hits the pavement with a small clang. The man then pats down Craig's two front pants pockets with no luck and then moves to the back ones. He feels something in one and slips his hand into the pocket grabbing at its contents. Craig tries his best to ignore the way the man was obviously groping at his ass in it as he takes the stuff out.

"Oh what's this?" the man asks looking at a five dollar bill and some loose change. "No change eh?"

"Well seeing as to how you got some now, can you let me go?" Craig asks glaring.

The man pockets the money, "Not yet, still need to check the other one," he says and moves his hand back around Craig's back.

The man gives his ass another squeeze as his hand moves over to the other pocket, and Craig now found the man to be too close for comfort for him. The man grins once his hand makes contact with the pocket as he feels something bulky in it. He takes out the item to reveal Craig's cellphone.

"Now this is nice," he says.

"Isn't the money enough?" Craig bites.

"No, this is much more interesting," he says and taps the screen, turning it on. "What is this? A rat?" he laughs looking at the phone's background image.

"It's a guinea pig," Craig monotones.

The man laughs, pocketing the phone as well.

"Now will you let me go? I'm pretty sure you have everything of mine," Craig says, anger in his tone.

Although hating the fact that he basically was just mugged, if it meant coming out of this unscathed, then he could live with that. The man pauses, looking Craig over once more.

"I suppose we could," the man says lowering the knife away, and Craig let's out a breath. The man eyes the other one behind Craig then, "But—" and suddenly the two arms of the scraggly man behind him, wrap around him, keeping him in place. "What fun would that be?"

The man then starts to unzip Craig's jacket and Craig's fight or flight instinct kicks in as he struggles to get away.

"Let me go!" Craig shouts.

"Stop struggling," the man orders, placing the tip of the knife at Craig's throat, and Craig stiffens at it. "That's better," he then proceeds to place a hand on Craig's chest. "Hmm, now what to do first?" he thinks aloud. And as pathetic as it is, Craig let's out a small whimper. "Maybe I should carve something so you don't forget about this wonderful encounter, or maybe I should beat you up, or..." he grabs at Craig's pants line and tugs.

"No!" Craig shouts and the man tugs some more, "Stop!"

The man laughs, "You sure are a loud one, huh? I can tell we're going to have some real fun tonight," he's about to continue, but stops when he spots something. "We've got company," he tells the other man.

The scraggly one looks back and so does Craig at it as well.

"Hey pal, keep moving, there's nothing to see here," the bigger man says.

Craig squints a bit, spotting a dark figure and trying to make out who it is through the rain, but being unable too. The figure continues to stand there and the scraggly man looks at the other.

"What should we do?" he asks.

The bigger man looks down, "Ignore them, they ain't shit," he replies and undoes Craig's button, causing him to start struggling again. "Stop moving," the man tells him, pressing the blade of the knife closer to his throat. As he starts pulling down the zipper, the man looks back up to see the figure is now gone. "Heh, I knew they'd leave."

Craig feels that any hope he may have had for getting out of this situation leaves him. The man finishes unzipping his pants and then starts to pull down the waistband of his underwear. And all Craig can hope for is for this all to be over quick, so he won't have to think about it too much. But just as he's about to be exposed, the scraggly man holding onto him from behind screams and let's go of him, taking off running.

"Man what the fuck are you—" the bigger man stops and slowly turns around as a sudden feeling washes over him. And he finds himself now face to face with the dark figure from before. He forgets about Craig and lifts his knife up to the figure instead, who had somehow managed to get behind him. "You want to go bud?!" the man shouts, then quickly launches forward swiping.

The figure dodges it and brings a hand up swiftly. For a moment, the man doesn't move until the figure draws their hand back and he suddenly finds himself falling to the ground. Craig stares stunned by what just happened but even more so by who the figure, who he could now see much more clearly, was.

"K-Kenny?" Craig says, recognizing his orange parka.

Kenny slowly turns to look at him, and Craig's eyes widen more when he sees a pair of glowing blue eyes staring back at him. Even in the darkness of night and the downpour of rain, they glowed brightly. And something about them both terrified and awed Craig. There's a few seconds of rain filled silence before Kenny looks away and walks off, leaving a trail of blood dripping from his hand and fading away from the rain a few seconds later. Craig watches him go, listening to the sound of the rain hitting the pavement as it fills up his mind, like a glass of a million thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a drawing I did of what Kenny looks like in this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter update!

When Monday morning comes around, needless to say that Craig has barely gotten any sleep that night. After what happened, he ended up staying up the rest of the night thinking about it. Now it wasn't just one eye, it was both that he saw burned in to his mind. And the faint lingerings of blood, which he tried not to think of too much.

Two questions were on his mind currently, one being, how come Kenny was there last night? And why? The image of a restaurant window flashes in his mind, and he starts to wonder if Kenny had been following him somehow that day. And if so, for what purpose was there? Craig let's out a slow long groan. There were to many questions racing through his mind and not enough answers.

He rolls over on his bed and reaches for his recovered phone and looks at it. There's a couple messages on it and he replies to them before getting up and getting ready for the day.

When Craig arrives at school, he's fully awake, having coming to terms with everything. He didn't think about it much as he got ready, but now that he was walking towards his first class of the day, one of the ones that he shared with Kenny, apprehension takes him over. He wasn't sure on what to expect, or how to react to seeing him again after last night. But as he takes a step into class, his breath holds, although only for a moment, when seeing that Kenny wasn't in it. He glances around, but there's no sign of him anywhere. For some odd reason, a strange tinge of disappointment settles in Craig. He doesn't understand why though, and ignores it as he takes his seat.

His morning classes come and go, and when lunch comes, he doesn't see him in the cafeteria anywhere either and starts to wonder if maybe he skipped school. But by the time his second shared class comes, Kenny is there. Craig stops in the class doorway when he spots him, and has to remind himself that there are other people around, before he continues to his desk. He's tense the whole way over to it, despite the fact that Kenny's head was down on his desk. It was like he was sleeping, which was very unusual. Actually, Craig was pretty sure that this was the first time he'd seen him like that at all since being at school. It almost made him seem normal, despite what Craig had witnessed before hand of him. For all of the class, Kenny's head continues to stay down until the end of it, when he finally looks up to leave. Never once sparing a glance in Craig's direction. But despite that, it still felt to Craig as if he knew he was there for some reason.

As Craig's last class of the day arrives, he goes out into the hallway to get a sip of water from the fountain, after a bit of an intense game of basketball. When he stands back up, he catches a small glimpse of Kenny walking by the hall.  _Is... he following me again?_  He thinks and isn't sure why, but all of the sudden a spark of nerve runs through him, and he found himself walking down the hall to where he was.

There were two things gnawing at the back of Craig's head as he followed after him, one telling him that this was probably a stupid thing to do, and the other a small lingering of curiosity. But it didn't matter which it was, because more than that, he was tired and if not, also a bit irritated by all of this. If Kenny was indeed following him, then he didn't care what he saw before, he wanted to put an end to this now. He didn't want to have to deal with having to look over his shoulder and seeing him there all the time.

As he gets around the corner, he catches another glimpse of Kenny turn down another hall and again when he catches him around the corner of the next hall. And the next thing Craig knows, he's running after him. He makes it down another hall and finally sees him walking down it clearly with a backpack on, and just as he sees him about to go around another corner, he calls out to him, but Kenny keeps walking.

He runs faster and shouts out again, just as Kenny exits a school side door. When Craig reaches the door, just as it closes, he pushes it back open and heads outside himself. He glances around quickly and catches the tip of Kenny's backpack go around the side of the building. He runs after it, and just as he's about to call out again, he finds himself running smack dab into something. So hard in fact, that he nearly falls over.

He takes a couple steps back, and glances up at what it is. He freezes when he realizes that it's Kenny's bag he had run in to as he looks up at the back of his hood. Craig finds his ground again and stands up straight.

"Don't you know it's rude to ignore someone, when they are calling out to you?" Craig manages to say, from his now gone dry mouth. He waits for Kenny to say something, as he catches his breath, but he doesn't. "Um..." he trails off and walks around Kenny to try and face him, and just as soon as he does, Kenny starts to walk again. "H-hey!"

In a quick move to stop him, Craig grabs onto Kenny's shoulder and pulls back on it, so that he can face him. He half expects to see glowing eyes, but there are none, just the usual deep shade of blue that they always were.

"I was talking to you," Craig says, and let's go of him when Kenny looks at his hand.

Kenny looks back up at Craig, and Craig suddenly feels a bit anxious under his gaze. They may not have been glowing, but they still sent his heart racing. And he wasn't sure if it was because of intimidation, fear, or what.

"I uh..." Craig gets out after a few awkward seconds, and thinks that maybe he should've listened to that voice at the back of his head about how stupid this was, and just went back to class. Which surprised him at just how far he followed him now that he thought about it."I just wanted to say uh, thanks, I guess. For helping me out last night." It's a strange way to start off, but it's the first thing he can think of to say at the moment, till the rest starts to process for him. "But that doesn't excuse all the other stuff you've been doing!" he adds.

There's a pause and just as Craig is ready to say more, a sudden deep, low, scratchy voice interrupts him.

"Strange."

It's muffled, and at first, Craig thinks he just imagines it, because it sure as hell was not a sound he was expecting to hear, or ever heard from someone he knew before. When he processes it as the only one logical thing it could be, he's a bit taken back by the surprising sound of it. Craig's mouth gaps a few times, opening and closing, before he gets out a reply to the unexpected word.

"Strange?" he repeats back, "What's strange? Me? Because if anything's strange, it's you! You're always staring at me, or following me! And it's just—"

"Aren't you always staring at me?" Kenny asks, cutting him off and it catches Craig completely off guard.

"I-I don't stare at you!" Craig says, his face burning slightly at realizing that it was actually true and that he had been caught before by him almost every time. "You just happened to be in my line of sight is all!"

"And you just happened to be in mine as well," Kenny says back, and for some reason, Craig internally squirms at those words a bit.

"Yeah—well—it doesn't excuse the fact that you've been following me!" Craig retorts.

"Aren't you the one following me?"

"That's not—this is—I only followed you out here to say thanks for before, but to also knock it off OK?! Don't get it confused!"

A deep sound erupts from the back of Kenny's throat, to what Craig can only describe as a laugh or chuckle.

"Wh-what's so funny?!" Craig asks, ignoring both the burning feeling rising in his face and the bizarre feeling of Kenny's rumbled laugh passing throughout him.

"You are very strange," Kenny says and turns away.

"Hey! I'm not done talking to you!" Craig says as Kenny starts heading off.

But Kenny keeps walking and Craig doesn't follow him this time, deciding to just stay where he is and watch him go instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if anyone is interested, I will be linking to a Crenny discord server. So if you ship it, feel free to join!
> 
>  
> 
> [Crenny Discord Link](https://discord.gg/P2hC3Ww)


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